


Have you ever seen the rain?

by phantomas (sil)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-27
Updated: 2010-08-27
Packaged: 2017-10-11 06:51:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/109645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sil/pseuds/phantomas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written in 2007 for the LJ poorboyshuffle challenge. I chose CCR's "Have you Ever Seen the Rain" as prompt.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Have you ever seen the rain?

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2007 for the LJ poorboyshuffle challenge. I chose CCR's "Have you Ever Seen the Rain" as prompt.

He walks slowly amongst the still smoking remains. One step after the other, looking down at the destruction. The smoking wood sizzles where the raindrops fall. Bamboo leaves, dried and roasted. Thick mud. The odd empty bowl. A rice sack, in the last standing corner of what was home to someone. The rice is all brown and gone bad, the sackcloth soaked and smelly.  
His weapon is heavier in his arms. The sweat on his brow gets mixed up with the raindrops. It runs on his cheeks, on his neck. Under the collar of his dirty t-shirt.

He tries not to step on any bones.

It rains, steadily, slowly. It blurs the soot and ash under his boots. It blurs the back of the fellow Marine in front of him, and the one before him, and the one before… a long, snake-line of broken men moving from jungle to jungle across this destruction.

Mary, he thinks. Mary.

The rain keeps falling, drop after drop after drop. Night and day, day and night. Everything melts away with it.

~~~

 

He doesn't seem to realize that by now, he's soaked wet. The coffee in his hands has gone cold, the steam lost in mid-air. His head rolls back, eyes closed at the sky, grey, muted, opaque. There's no way to avoid this. He steels himself, throws the coffee away. There's silence waiting for him inside the motel room, Tropical Nights, the motel is called, and it makes him gnaw his teeth, fuck the place, and the name, and the rain.

Sammy is taller than him, now. Not by much.

Dean has his arms crossed across his chest, a tense, tight line to his lips.

Sam yells louder than both of them. Louder than the thunder outside. Louder than the slamming of doors, the slamming of hands flat on the cheap table between them.

He thought…. He's seen it coming. How could he not? The calm before the storm. Now he stares at his son, his child, and all he can see it's destruction, and smoke snaking up in the air, and all he can hear is the sound of the raindrops hitting the windowpanes.

When it's over, he's surprised to see that it's stopped raining.

Sam, he thinks. Sammy.

~~~

 

Jim's voice is quiet on the phone. He shouldn't drive as he talks on the phone, but he's keeping an eye on the road. No patrols around. With this weather, they're probably hidden someplace dry. The car-wipers swish-swash in front of him, back and forth. They dance with the rain drops.

It'll be okay, Jim says. You should call him, he says. He's just like you, he says. You're lucky he went to college, and not to war, he says.

Is it ever going to end, Jim? John wants to ask. Will it ever end, the rain, and the smoke, and the blood, and the cold?

Dean is in New Orleans. Dean is strong. Dean is a good boy. A good son. A good brother. A good man.

All he wanted for his sons was to have a sunny future.

~~~

 

He reaches out with his hand. He wants to touch the drops as they fall. It doesn't hurt. He expected it to hurt. Everything is calm around him. He can smell the smoke, though, so he know it's coming. It's been coming for a long time, now, and he's tired. Tired of waiting. Tired of the drops falling, and washing it all away.

Dean, he thinks. Dean.

It's what makes him move. Makes it all worth it.

It figures that it'd be raining. There's a storm coming, and his boys will be right in the middle of it…

He looks around. Sees the mud. The bones sticking out. He tries not to step on them, not to look at the empty eyes staring up at him. He starts walking, but soon, it's hands and knees, broken nails and blood. The wind has picked up, slamming the rain hard in his face. He'll crawl, if he can't walk. He'll scream, if he can't talk. He'll cough the smoke out of his lungs, let them burn his flesh, because the rain won't stop, and all he can do is crawl out of this hell, crawl out of the rain, see the light filtering amongst the raindrops again, claw his way out.

And let the rain keep falling.


End file.
